Unfinished Bilge Drain

[RickK]

I think you're over thinking it - peice of cake.
Mark where the hatch will go and trace the inside of the hatch on the floor (some of the hatches come with a template that you can use too). Drill a hole in a corner big enough to get the jigsaw blade into the wood and with a new blade the little time it takes to cut out a 7x11 hole will be minimal.  The layers of fiberglass are minimal compared to the wood, so the jigsaw will go right through it.  Remember to "measure twice, cut once"  

[Hardwater]

Skoot,
I had to replace the livewell drain on the '86 CCP.  The factory install was plain ol' iron pipe - better than nothin', but not much.  It didn't hold up real well even in fresh water use.  The good news was that the transom wood was in dry, solid condition when the drain tube was removed.  At that point I was thinking along the lines flkeysaqua mentioned - stainless.

I found a company here that sells stainless steel pipe, fittings and other hardware to the food industry.  They cut and threaded a short section of heavy walled stainless pipe for replacement.  Everything came to less than $30.00.  Picture of the replacement is toward the end of this thread:

http://classicaquasport.com/smf/index.php?topic=4352.0

For install, I completely coated the inside of the transom hole with 4200, 'buttered' the outside of the new drain tube with the same, cleaned up the excess and locked it in place with the flanged bronze nuts salvaged from the original fitting.  Stainless flange nuts would have been better for eliminating any possible galvanic reaction/corrosion - but I couldn't find anything in stainless that would work.

The pipe is 304 stainless instead of the marine grade 316 standard, but with the wall thickness that pipe should hold up for a long time in fresh water, probably do OK in salt, too.

Your application is a little different, but a variation may work.  There's got to be stainless pipe available in your area - probably a better grade than I bought.  If you want to go that route and can't find anything, pm me and I'll send a piece your way.

[terntwo 24]

Ya Slvring,if there was some quality control a lot of us wouldn't be having  so much fun with are boats in the drive way :x on mine where the transom met the bottom there was bare wood in some spots


on both sides of the transom spots like this,with bare wet wood no wonder they failed even tho it took 30 years